The Tempest
Contributors: Christine Dymkowski (Editor)
Series: Shakespeare in Production
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 408
ISBN-13: 9780521783750
Copyright date: 2000
Subjects: Shakespeare plays, texts; Shakespeare studies & criticism; Literary; Plays / Drama; English; Fiction; Shakespeare; Literary Collections / General
First sentence: For the way in which the architecture of Shakespeare's stage represented the ship, and for Restoration stagings, see the Introduction.
Description: Shakespeare's last play seems unusually elastic, capable of radically different interpretations, which reflect the social, political, scientific or moral concerns of their period. This edition of The Tempest is the first dedicated to its stage history. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, it examines four centuries of mainstream, regional, and fringe productions in Britain (including Dryden and Davenant's Restoration adaptation), nineteenth- and twentieth-century American stagings, and recent Australian, Canadian, French, Italian, and Japanese productions. 

In a substantial, illustrated Introduction Dymkowski analyses the cultural significance of changes in the play's theatrical representation, for example, when and why Caliban began to be represented by a black actor, and Ariel became a man's role rather than a woman's. The commentary annotates each line of the play with details about acting, setting, textual alteration and cuts, and contemporary reception. 

With extensive quotation from contemporary commentators and detail from unpublished promptbooks, the edition offers both an accessible account of the play's changing meanings and a valuable resource for further research.

(back cover)